Dad wants more funds spent on teenage drivers

Joshua's Law

Posted: Sunday, October 11, 2009

By ERRIN HAINES

ATLANTA - A state law adopted in 2007 that required driver's education for all 16-year-olds also created a way to help pay for it, but only 20 percent of funds collected under the program have been appropriated for its use.

State officials say the law does not require all the money collected through an extra fee on traffic tickets to be spent on the teen driver's education program, but the father of the boy who inspired the law says more money generated by the law should be used for that purpose.

Alan Brown's son, Joshua, died in a car wreck in 2003. Since then, Brown said Joshua's Law has helped thousands of Georgia teens become safer drivers.

"I wrote this law to save lives and to honor my son," Brown said. "I wanted to create a way to pay for driver's education without mom or dad or the taxpayers having to pay for it."

From fiscal years 2005 to 2009, $38.4 million was collected from the add-on fine and went into the state's general fund. The legislature appropriated $2.7 million per year for fiscal years 2007 to 2009, for a total of about $8.1 million.

Joshua's Law was passed during the 2005 General Assembly and took effect beginning Jan. 1, 2007. According to the law, all 16-year-olds applying for a Class D driver's license must complete an approved driver education course and 40 hours of supervised driving, including six hours of night driving. The teen's parent or guardian must provide a sworn verification that these requirements have been met.

Any Georgia resident who has not taken the driver's education class must be at least 17 years old to get a driver's license, but must meet the same supervised driving requirements and have parent verification.

The law also aimed to help more teens get into driver education and training programs, and created a 5 percent surcharge on traffic tickets to help fund the programs.

The Georgia Driver's Education Commission was established, in part to administer those funds to public schools and libraries, and created a grant fund for eligible parties to apply. Bob Dallas, vice chair of the commission and head of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, said the state is not required to spend all of the money raised through the surcharge on driver's education and must balance the program's needs with others in the state.

"The legislators have to make a decision as to where the money goes," Dallas said. "They truly do care and are very much interested in our teens being educated to be good drivers so we have fewer of them get into injuries and crashes that cause deaths."

Under the grant program, 10,200 students completed the grant-provided driver education courses in 2008 and public libraries in 113 locations made available online driver education instructions to high school students across the state.

Brown said that's a start, but that the state must do more.

"All these kids that are now alive, I'm extremely thrilled with that. But the state is tainting my son's name by not doing what they're supposed to be doing."